You never saw such a sausage.

Luganega is an Italian sausage that is more common in the Northern provinces. The recipe varies from town to town and is truly a regional sausage. In this recipe the wine and cheese are the dominant flavors. Typically this is a sheep casing (smaller diameter) sausage that is wound into a single dinner plate sized coil. When I decided to make it the only casing that was readily available was the larger diameter hog casing so my husband Brian and I twisted it into the more commonly found “bun size” Italian sausage links. This was our first attempt at sausage making and we had a total blast. Brian and I were cheering and high-fiving each other when we finished.

Nest a bowl inside of a larger bowl filled with ice and water. Metal bowls work best for this but any bowls large enough to hold the ingredients will do.

Grind the pork with a fine grinding die and allow it to fall into the chilling bowl.

Add the seasoning mixture and mix thoroughly but quickly. Cold hands (chilled with a bowl of ice water or under very cold running water) or a stiff spoon will do the job.

Pull off a small portion of the sausage and fry it over medium-low heat so you can taste (and adjust if necessary) the seasoning.

If you plan to stuff into casings, stuff immediately or refrigerate until you are ready to stuff. It is very important that the mixture stay cold so the fats do not melt and separate.

Store the sausage in the refrigerator for up to 4 days or freeze for up to 3 months.

This entry was posted
on Tuesday, September 7th, 2010 at 5:39 pm and is filed under Kitchen Adventures and tagged with luganega, sausage.
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